


Sometimes

by kscribbles



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s04e13 Journey's End, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-04
Updated: 2013-03-04
Packaged: 2017-12-04 06:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/707583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kscribbles/pseuds/kscribbles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasnt fair to either of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Starlightmoonla who beta'd this after I begged. One of several post-JE 'trying to deal with it' fics. Written in 2008.

  
He could still feel him, across the void. Human or not, there was another Time Lord in existence, and not even the aching emptiness of the void could dull the fine pulse of him in his brain.

Was it stronger because it was _him_? Because they were connected by DNA, by a thousand years of memories? He wasn’t sure. There had never been another him in a parallel world. Except for so very briefly in the one that sprang up around Donna when she was attacked by the Trickster’s beetle.

Their link wasn’t strong enough for real communication, and he was thankful for that. All he could feel was his presence, occupying the formerly empty portion of his brain, that which had lain dormant and useless for years now. Barring the year and change that it’d been filled and tortured by the voice of the Master. He’d get vague impressions sometimes, feelings. Confusion, anger, happiness, love. All these things, equally and regularly, in the beginning.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing for his duplicate. The one he’d punished by banishment and rewarded with Rose.

Sometimes, in sleep, when his mental barriers were at their lowest, he’d receive fleeting images. They were almost all of her. Often she was laughing, her eyes bright with mirth. He’d see her dancing sometimes, once on a frozen lake, wearing completely impractical clothing. He’d see her yelling at him, because he’d done something unbelievably foolish, her face scrunched in annoyance. Or breathless from a new adventure. Or flushed with passion.

He didn’t like to sleep.

Even though sometimes he’d wake wearing a smile, more often than not it’d be his own tears that woke him. Or he’d wake to a body aching with desire.

Desire for a woman he’d never, ever have. He made sure of it when he’d given her someone who could love her properly. And he knew he’d made the right decision. But that didn’t make it easier to live with.

_Rose_.

She had been _there_ , she had been real. She’d crossed over the void countless times, looking for him. Alive, real, solid in his arms when he’d hugged her. For a few shining moments, even in the middle of crisis, he’d been complete. And Davros, poor damned Davros, knew the exact way to best torture him down in that vault. _You can look, but you can’t touch._

The same punishment he’d doled out to himself. He’d watch Rose, in small vague glimpses, forever. Her forever. Eventually even that would end. His head would be empty again, and both of them would be just a sad memory. Added to the pile of half-regrets.

 

* * *

 

He could still feel him, across the void. Human or not, he could feel the other Time Lord, and not even the aching emptiness of the void could dull the fine pulse of him in his brain.

He was human. Humanish. He had one heart and no respiratory bypass system. He seemed to have more human hormones to deal with. But otherwise, he was still a Time Lord. He still felt the turn of the earth, the passage of time, could still sense the twist and pull of vibrant time lines. And he could feel the mind of his counterpart. Not his brother, not his twin, _him_. Everything he was, part of who he is, and a whole heaping spoonful of what he’ll never ever be again.

He still felt the loss of the TARDIS as keenly as if he’d lost a limb. She tugged at his mind sometimes too. But he couldn’t tug back. Perhaps she was one step too far removed.

He’d be into middle age before his new TARDIS was grown enough to function, and even still it wouldn’t be the TARDIS he knew.

But that was the worst of his troubles, ultimately. And he knew no matter how frustrating linear living was, no matter how much the slow path grated against his instincts, no matter how annoying walls and carpets and Jackie Tyler were, he was pretty much the luckiest biological metacrisis, ever.

He got to spend his days and nights with Rose. He had her hand to hold; he could still take her fabulous places and hear her brilliant laughter. He got to make love to her. To hold her in his arms afterwards until she fell asleep. He never had to wake alone, to live with that almost constant thrum of sadness he could feel through the void, to carry the weight of the universe on his shoulders alone, to walk empty TARDIS halls and wish things were different.

He did though, sometimes, wish things were different. When he succumbed to the crushing guilt he carried with him, he knew he didn’t deserve any of it. Not her love, not this life. That all belonged to him, across the void. And though it was given to him, he still, sometimes felt like he stole it. If there was a way, to give it back… well, he’d never really do it, would he? He’s a coward in humanish form as well. And he could never give up Rose.

In the beginning, though, when it took her weeks to kiss him without crying, he’d sometimes wished it was he who’d ended up alone. Like that would have made everything all right. Rose would be happier with _him_ on the other side. He was never meant to exist, after all.

And sometimes, he kind of wished for the weight of the universe.

 

* * *

 

She could feel him in her head sometimes, especially when they made love. She never mentioned it and he never breathed a word. But she knew that at those moments–when he was driving into her, making her gasp and writhe, and his lips or his fingertips would find her temple–when her mind was open to him, he could also see her heart.

She knew what he saw there.

There was only the Doctor. Her heart didn’t differentiate. The same man took her hand in Henrik’s, kissed the vortex out of her, had lain on apple grass with her, clung to her after they’d defeated the devil, told her he loved her, walked away from her, and also held her hand as the TARDIS disappeared from her life forever.

That didn’t mean her heart didn’t break for the one in brown pinstripes, on the other side of the void. She knew he knew that too.

And on her worst days, it was him, the Doctor who was left with her that got the brunt of her ire, when sometimes it was the other that deserved it. He’d left them here, given her no choice as to her own future, like he'd done several times before. Like she was a child meant to be bidden and to obey.

It wasn’t fair to either of them.

And those times when she felt the full weight of her love, when she felt like her heart might burst with joy sometimes on just the strength of a phrase or a smile across the room from him, she could almost, _almost_ forget she’d ever wished that things were different.

And maybe it was always coming to this. The Doctor told her about how all the time lines had converged on Donna to create him and the DoctorDonna; maybe this life had always been their destiny. Maybe, it was even she herself who was responsible. Maybe it all came down to Bad Wolf.

No matter what force ultimately brought them together, together they’d honour the sacrifice her lonely Doctor had made, make it worth something. The only way to do that was to live the one adventure he could never have. Living a life day after day.

They’d be happy. They owed it to him. And they _owed it all_ to him.

She only wishes he could know.

 

 

FIN  


* * *

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